Penoyre & Prasad has reskinned the Constructivist-influenced Guy's Tower in London, giving it back its crown as the tallest hospital in the world. Architect Sunand Prasad explains how his team updated an "ugly building designed with a great deal of love" (+ slideshow + interview).

Located on the South Bank of the River Thames in central London, the structure – which is actually made up of two towers joined by a bridge – is one of the 19 buildings that form the Guy's Hospital campus, a major medical teaching facility that includes the Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, and King's College London.

The building was completed by Watkins Grey Architects in the early 1970s. Less than 40 years later, it was suffering from decay. Sizeable cracks had formed in the walls and the concrete had begun to deteriorate.

"It was completely clapped out," explained Prasad, who served as RIBA president between 2007 and 2009. "The concrete surface was flaking off to the point where abseilers had to go up the tower and carefully break off pieces before they could fall away. And also it was leaking energy like a sieve."

Working in close partnership with engineering firm Arup, Penoyre & Prasad carried out a full analysis of the building. They developed a series of strategies for its repair that could be implemented without closing the busy hospital.

The taller of the two structures – the 143-metre-high Communications Tower – was also the most damaged so it required an entirely new facade. Anodised aluminium was chosen, intended to give the building a solid hewn finish, and the old windows were swapped for double glazing.

"The vertical Communications Tower has been clad in a special geometric, folded origami-like aluminium skin that we devised and tested – it's super insulated," Prasad told Dezeen.

For the accompanying User Tower, all the glazing had to be replaced and the concrete required a thorough restoration, revealing its original white-cement aggregate.

"The User Tower has also been completely reclad, but working entirely from the balconies so that the workers didn't have to go inside to reclad the building," explained the architect. "Eventually, from inside, the old walls will be removed and the building will get slightly larger."

Guy's first opened in 1974, at the same time that the Barbican Estate was rising on the other side of the city. Its raw concrete exterior led to it being connected to the Brutalist style – and all the negative associations that later came with that.

But Prasad describes the design as Constructivist – the engineering-led style that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. He believes this is most clearly present by the jaw-like lecture theatre that cantilevers from the top of the taller tower.

"It is an ugly building, but it's an ugly building that was designed with a great deal of love," he said. "Maybe a sad or interesting fact about the 1960s is that a lot of the buildings that people think of as pretty ugly and Brutalist were actually done with enormous care and finesse."

"I didn't think we could make it into a beautiful building – and that wasn't the aim," he continued. "The aim was actually to, if anything, emphasise what I think is its Constructivist character."

As part of the renovation, a 14-metre-high light-relecting installation by German artist Carsten Nicolai was added on the roof, increasing the overall height of the building to 148.65 metres.

Because of this, Guy's can now once again call itself the tallest hospital building in the world – a title it held for 16 years before being overtaken by the 145-metre-high O'Quinn Medical Tower in Houston and the 148.5-metre-high Hong Kong Sanitorium & Hospital.

Before

"It has a new presence in what is a very exciting quarter that is emerging because of The Shard," added Prasad, referencing Renzo Piano's 300-metre tower that now sits nearby.

"The whole London Bridge area is undergoing complete change, and Guy's Tower stands as a refreshed, new part of the collection of interesting buildings on the South Bank."

After

Read the full interview with Sunand Prasad:

Marcus Fairs: Tell me about the project. What is it and why were you commissioned to do it?

Sunand Prasad: Guy's Hospital is the tallest hospital in the world. It is a very interesting building dating from the early 70s and has some very interesting facts about it. It is incredibly versatile because it is designed to have a core and separate user plates.

But by 2008-2009 it was completely clapped out. The concrete surface was flaking off to the point where abseilers had to go up the tower and carefully break off pieces before they could fall away. And also it was leaking energy like a sieve.

So we won a competition with Arup to completely remodel the outside of the tower. We weren't allowed to touch the inside because there's everything going on in there from operations to dentistry.

Sunand Prasad: It's at London Bridge next to The Shard. For a long time it was the tallest building in that area. It was the landmark by which you would find London Bridge station, but now you've got the Shard.

It is an ugly building, but it's an ugly building that was designed with a great deal of love. Maybe a sad or interesting fact about the 60s is that a lot of the buildings that people think of as pretty ugly and Brutalist were actually done with enormous care and finesse.

I didn't think we could make it into a beautiful building – and that wasn't the aim. The aim was actually to, if anything, emphasise what I think is its Constructivist character.

Sunand Prasad: Brutalism is very often attached to anything made of concrete of a large scale, because exposed concrete comes from, of course, béton brut, which is what Le Corbusier called raw concrete. But I call it Constructivist is because it has a projecting lecture theatre.

It has two clearly articulated bits – the circulation core and the floor plates. The way that it sits on the ground is actually very obscured, but originally when it sat on the ground it would have been quite an interesting thing to enter from below.

It's very graphic – showing its parts very clearly and separately. So we've tried to reinforce that a little by emphasising the separation of the two towers, by cladding the projecting lecture theatre in a slightly different material, by putting a sculpture on top to give it a little more presence.

And the light at the top of the tower, which is actually quite subtle, is connected to the energy use of the tower through a computer.

Marcus Fairs: The building has a distinctive cantilevered jaw-like form at the top, which contains a lecture theatre. Why is the theatre at the top of the building rather than the bottom?

Sunand Prasad: Partly to make a dynamic and interesting top. Watkins Gray Architects – who were behind the original design – must have thought quite long and hard. The whole device of the cantilevering lecture theatre – which was actually one of Stirling's student projects, there were other precedents for it at that time – obviously captured imaginations.

It was first done by a Constructivist, Melnikov, in a workers club – the Rusakov club in Moscow. So it's kind of in the culture to do cantilevered lecture theatres. And somebody obviously thought that we can have a hospital and all of the education can be at the top with fantastic views of London.

Underneath the lecture theatre there's a big space with a balcony where you can look out over London. It's a shame actually – it's one of these hidden spaces of London that we ought to have access to and one of our proposals was to give access to it - which I hope still will happen one day.

Sunand Prasad: Of the two towers, the vertical Communications Tower has been clad in a special geometric, folded origami-like aluminium skin that we devised and tested – it's super insulated.

The User Tower – which had these 1200-square-metre floorplates over 34 storeys, with some interstitial plant floors – has also been completely reclad, but working entirely from the balconies so that the workers didn't have to go inside to reclad the building. Eventually, from inside, the old walls will be removed and the building will get slightly larger.

Sunand Prasad: There were three keys aims really: one was to make it safe and long lasting, but another was about making it energy efficient. Relative to the performance of the cladding, it is 18 per cent more energy efficient that it was. The carbon cost of the work will be repaid within about 10 years. So that has all been calculated.

And thirdly, it creates a new image; it has a new presence in what is a very exciting quarter that is emerging because of The Shard. The whole London Bridge area is undergoing complete change, and Guy's Tower stands as a refreshed, new part of the collection of interesting buildings on the South Bank.

Brutalism: the design for the clover-shaped tower of Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago was enabled by the pioneering application of one of the earliest three-dimensional modelling programmes. With its curving form, Goldberg made a clear break away from the grid formations favoured in Modernist architecture. More »

This timelapse movie by architectural photographer Paul Raftery and director Dan Lowe shows the final stages of construction for London skyscraper The Shard, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. Larger version + story »

Think this would have been better if the metal cladding was coloured to match the concrete better.

These Brutalist works derive a lot of their strength from appearing monolithic. However, the folded cladding is quite beautiful.

MB

This saddens me greatly.

After living in its shadow for three years, Guys hospital is (was?) my favourite building in London. Its forceful, bold aesthetics have been continually undermined, first by the Shard and now by this.

We have lost another beautiful Brutalist building to fashion.

Kris

Brutalist… don’t you mean grotesque?

spadestick

LOST another building? The building is right there… still there. It hasn’t moved an inch. You can’t lose a person through different clothing, much less a building with bad proportions.

John

The whole finish of the work was in the half inch that is gone… Ruskin baby.

https://soundcloud.com/inhead-kay/ Kay

Brace yourselves. The anti-Brutalism, anti-Modernism ‘ABAM’ brigade is coming with their pointless and hate-filled inflammatory comments that only go to show how closed-minded they are.

Chris MacDonald

Not liking something doesn’t make you wrong.

Guest

There it is again, that old “hate”, even “hate-filled”, and with “inflammatory” this time. Good grief, does disliking something now make us such bad people? And how often do we hear that accusation “closed-minded” levelled at people with simply an alternate view. All so unnecessarily malicious.

spadestick

Modernism has had its good and bad architects.
Brutalism has had its good and bad architects. Unfortunately, this building had a bad one from the beginning.

Worse yet, Penoyre & Prasad went all intellectual and continued perpetuating this badly proportioned and awful building. Perhaps the precedence that should be taken would be better approached in an “adaptive re-use” sense, like how an ancient ruin would be treated.

El Sombrero

Yeah, like the building should have been completely covered in glass to frame the beautifully decaying concrete to treat it like a ruin, while using light and shadow to “re-proportion” it! No what am I saying? I’m sure you would’ve done it better.

Michael Farley

Whoa yeah… The original looked 100 times better.

Jonathan Tuffin

They’ve done the best that could be done, but it’s still lipstick on a pig.

spadestick

Well put!

Stuart W.

I would have preferred if it had the ‘Park Hill’ treatment, rather than being a wolf wrapped in sheep’s clothing. I fear we will lose all buildings of this era in the same way. In my opinion they should be treated with a little more respect.

spadestick

Yes, Park Hill is an excellent example of a good treatment.

Rafiya Aslam

That was cool. One of the craziest looking glass buildings I have seen in a long time. I was on the HNG site a while ago. Do check them as well. They have some pretty good stuff too. http://www.hngfloatblog.com